One Shot First: Beyond the Veil
After agents discover a lead on a ship missing for decades, the Broker dispatches a team to seek it out... Agents Session 1 * Rogesh Vai * Derra * Shorbecca * Nenna * Erdogan Cael * Reo Session 2 * Pakbatt * R0C-K4 "Rocky" * Gristle * Aiden * Sev-ak * Momo Mission Report (Session 2) Summary by Ben After a Broker team, including R0C and Sev-ak, extracted some key data regarding a tracking device that may lead to an important asset that could help the cell’s operations. It’s a ship that was once stationed at the research base on Toola, and disappeared while on a trip to Christophsis. The data recovered has revealed three different locations that it may have stopped at, but little more. The agents will have to investigate more closely using a tracking program developed by Alro. Gristle and Aiden attempt to put together a chart based on the three sets of coordinates, but the data is too scattered to make anything actionable - the information is at least a hundred years out of date, not taking more recent movements in the stellar bodies into account. With no significant leads beyond the scavenged hundred-year-old route, the crew loads up onto the Sunflare and jumps for Toola, where the frigate began its trip. From there, they hop onto the trail, launching into the second set of coordinates with little difficulty. They find a blue-gray rimmed world with a sensor station orbiting. With caution, they hail the station and make a slow approach. Their hail is answered by a friendly sullustan, who seems simultaneously proud and suspicious, eager to both ask and answer questions. Gristle barters for some of their harvested scans of passing ships, but can’t make any sense of the raw data. They load data from the relevant time period, 250-150 years ago, onto a data chip and bid the station’s attendants adieu, heading off to the next system after checking Alro’s scanning program, which reads a little warmer than on Toola. The next system isn’t in the same direction, but might still yield some valuable clues, so they shift position and make the jump. They emerge from hyperspace to the view of a twisting, gray-green nebula, and a group of ships wheel around ahead of them, moving into attack positions. One of the groups of fighters closes in and launches a volley of missiles, which veer off course as Aiden pulls the Sunflare into evasive maneuvers. The other wing of fighters unloads their missiles, landing a glancing hit while the freighter leading them closes in with ion weapons. The Sunflare returns fire, but to little effect, and after the quick exchange, Gristle mans the comms and sends out a broad transmission, feigning surrender. The freighter closes in and docks, but as the agents are lying in wait, they mistime their ambush and the boarding pirates are tipped off. As the pirates retreat back to their docked freighter, R0C pursues them, slipping into the closing blast door and committing a massacre on the other side. A few minutes later, the door opens again and R0C re-emerges, streaked with blood. Per Gristle’s request, though, the captain is left alive, giving them an opportunity to negotiate. Gristle offers to let the captain leave in exchange for any information about the ship they’re searching for, but the captain has little knowledge of it. R0C manages to at least coerce some credits out of the pirate to cover the cost of the information purchased from the sullustan earlier. Passage secured, the crew leaves the captain to his ship and jumps out to the next point. The next set of coordinates takes them to a wide asteroid field, but the tracking program begins showing a strong signal, almost a clear tone. A look at the scanners shows a large, concentrated signature of mass toward the center of the field. Pressing on, Aiden is forced to navigate through an exogorth mating ground while Momo co-pilots and the other agents wait patiently, hoping they don’t become worm-feed. When they approach the source of the signature, the tracking program emits another solid beep and a ship fades into view ahead of them. It matches the description of their target. Swinging the Sunflare in close, they attempt to perform a quick scan, but it doesn’t yield much in the way of useful information. Deciding to proceed, they begin the docking handshake and link up, allowing the team to walk aboard and begin securing the vessel. Alro had also developed another program that will allow them to slave the ship’s navigation systems to the Sunflare’s so it can follow their course out autonomously. Gristle, Aiden and Momo head to the auxiliary bridge to try to upload Alro’s program while R0C, Sev-ak and Pakbatt head to the lower holds to look around for any signs of activity or life. The ship itself doesn’t appear damaged, even on the interior. Proceeding along, R0C enters a new chamber and feels a sudden jolt from what appears to be an electrified floor. R0C begins hopping across while Pakbatt draws an arrow and ties it to a long cord of synthrope before shooting it to the other side, catching the arrowhead firmly into the far wall. He secures the rope and begins shimmying across with Sev-ak. When Sev-ak reaches the other side, he sees where a cord has been sliced and rigged specifically to electrify the floor in the room’s center. They open up comms and warn the others of potential traps. Proceeding to the flight control area, Gristle, Aiden and Momo begin feeling a magnetic tug from the other side of the door. They set their metallic gear down and open the door to peek inside, revealing what looks like a large, jury-rigged electromagnet with all sorts of scraps stuck to it. Gristle moves inside and jumps up, using the Force to enhance his strength and tear the magnet from the ceiling, cutting its power and freeing all of the junk affixed to it. Among the leavings is a mouse droid that spins its wheels after landing on its back. Aiden hooks up a datapad to the droid and asks it a few questions. The last time it saw other people was over 104 years ago, and it remembers seeing numerous traps during its time traveling the ship’s ducts. It offers a rough map of the reported traps and requests to return to duty. Inside Astrogation, Aiden cracks into the navicomputer and finds the ship’s jump history, which follows the coordinates they were given. The next room is their goal, Flight Control, and inside they find an active AI core that recognizes them as organic and questions their return. Gristle informs it that they’re there to return the ship to operation, and that they’ll need to divert from the ship’s original course back to Rendili Hyperworks. The AI is reluctant, but agrees to help. According to its reports, all of the organics on the ship died of unknown causes. The crew installs Alro’s slave program and moves down to the medbay to investigate the bodies of the old crew. The causes of death vary quite widely, but none are from weapons. Instead, they’re all the result of various types of devious traps. In addition, all of the bodies show signs of significant radiation exposure, suggesting that their deaths may have a common source, after all. Curious about the radiation leak, the team heads to Engineering to investigate both the hyperdrive and the cloaking system. The hyperdrive doesn’t appear to have any sort of radiation leak, but the cloaking system is too foreign to investigate properly. The AI core calls back in at the same time, asking for permission to activate the cloaking field and jump to the rendezvous point. They request that it wait, not sure what might happen if the cloaking field is activated, but as they’re heading to the Sunflare to escape, a warning blares, signalling a massive incoming signature. When the team reaches the CIC to defend the ship, they find that the new contact isn’t a ship, but a massive space-borne insect bearing down on them. Momo and Pakbatt man the turbolasers while Aiden takes the helm. A heavy salvo of laser fire blasts into the creature’s abdomen, wounding it gravely, but it persists, latching onto the hull and biting into the armored plating with its huge scything jaws. The ship pulls away, but the wasp’s strikes cripple the sublight engines, slowing it to a crawl. The hull barely holds while the turbolasers recharge, and they’re able to buy just enough time for a full broadside to rip into its carapace, leaving it a smoldering corpse in space. Before heading out, they use the Sunflare’s tractor beam to extract some pieces of the wasp for later use and testing. Category:Shadow of the Broker Missions